Mask Mandated Nixed A Second Time By Sarasota City Leaders

SARASOTA, FL — Weeks after deciding not to extend the city of Sarasota’s face mask mandate, city commissioners revisited the matter, voting against a motion to revive a citywide mask requirement in a 3-2 vote at their Monday meeting.

Commissioners Jennifer Ahearn-Koch, Liz Alpert and Kyle Battie voted in favor of bringing back an emergency mask ordinance. Mayor Hagen Brody and Vice Mayor Erik Arroyo voted against the measure, though. At least four votes were needed for the motion to pass.

In February, Battie joined Brody and Arroyo in voting against a 60-day extension of the city’s mask mandate, which was initially put in place in July. The mask mandate, which expired Feb. 25, required face coverings in indoor and outdoor public locations within city limits.

Despite voting against the mandate, it was Battie who pushed to revisit the matter Monday, saying he felt he “made a wrong decision.”

He voted against the mandate in February because Gov. Ron DeSantis made mask laws unenforceable with a September executive order suspending the collection of fines and penalties related to COVID-19 restrictions by local governments. The governor signed an updated executive order March 10 canceling these fines and penalties entirely.

Still, with spring break visitors heading to Sarasota and the coronavirus affecting the city’s minority communities at higher rates, he felt the matter should be revisited.

“For me, personally, it was just about trying to do the right thing and do the right thing by the people,” he said.

Calling masks “a proven tool,” Ahearn-Koch said, “I think the message we need to give continues to be ‘Wear a mask when you’re out and about.’ Our job is to protect the health, the safety and the welfare of this community, and this is one of the ways — really, one of the only ways — we can do that.”

The unenforceability of the mandate because of the governor’s orders makes it “a moot point,” Arroyo said. He also noted that the commission had passed a proclamation encouraging masks that is “basically saying the same thing” as an emergency mandate.

He added, “We support people wearing masks. You should be safe. We’re just not going to create an unenforceable law.”

Brody stressed that he supports mask-wearing in public and other guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but creating a mandate comes with “the burden of enforcement and implementation.”

The mayor added, “We have a fundamental problem here. We cannot collect the fines that are in the mandate before us, and that leaves it unenforceable.”

Alpert pointed out that the city didn’t enforce the mandate even when it was still in place, comparing it to seat belt laws, which for many years weren’t enforced. Those laws served as a reminder for drivers and passengers to wear their seat belts, though, she said.

“I think having a mask ordinance is more powerful than a proclamation and it gives the businesses in our city something to be able to say to their patrons, that there is an ordinance,” she said. “It helps them to be able to control (customers wearing masks.)”

Numerous health experts in the Sarasota area also spoke in favor of extending the emergency mask order.

Dr. Manuel Gordillo, an infectious disease specialist with Sarasota Memorial Hospital, called for the community to remain vigilant about face masks even as more people receive the COVID-19 vaccine in the area.

“We are at a critical juncture in this pandemic,” he said. “Vaccination continues to ramp up almost daily, but there are still a large percentage of unvaccinated citizens.”

Even with the number of cases decreasing in the Sarasota area, he reminded commissioners that “this is not homogenous.” The number of cases in lower-income ZIP codes remains “substantial … week by week,” even increasing in some neighborhoods, he said.

“Until we get more people vaccinated, public health measures will be paramount to keeping the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths under control,” Gordillo said.

Of the non-pharmaceutical measures available to control the spread of the virus, “the easiest, least expensive and most proven are face masks.”

Dr. Jon Yenari, a gynecologist with Intercoastal Medical Group, said that it’s important to extend the mask measure even as more residents are getting vaccinated.

“The number one thing I wanted to say is that masks do work. All the health care workers, we wouldn’t be in masks if we didn’t believe in them,” he said.

Yenari added, “We want this to end, but it’s not quite time yet. We’re almost there.”